


Safe

by TwoMenAndAGuava (drakkynfyre47)



Series: Night Shift [3]
Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: Gen, Mail Call
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakkynfyre47/pseuds/TwoMenAndAGuava
Summary: Newkirk receives bad news from home. Carter helps.





	

**Author's Note:**

> originally written to see if I could get a better handle on Carter's voice.

“Mail call!” Schultz entered the barracks, flinging the door open wide so that it thumped back against the lockers. Immediately the fifteen men in Barracks 2 clustered around him, reaching across the table, elbowing others out of the way, and even standing on the bench, in LeBeau’s case, to try to grab the mail.

“Hey, settle down, fellas,” Hogan called as he exited his office. “We’ll all get the mail eventually. Form a line and we’ll let Schultz take care of it.”

With no small amount of grumbling, the men complied. “Kinchloe… Carter…. Giovanni…. LeBeau…. Davis…. Newkirk…. Williamson….” Schultz read off the name on each envelope as he distributed the letters. As each man received his mail, he went to sit on his bunk.

“Hey, guess what? Mary Jane says we’re not even gonna have the annual town ball night. There’s not enough partners to go around!” Carter laughed as he read the letter from his girlfriend. 

“And Madeline tells me that there’s no more sugar ration. Otherwise she would have sent me something she baked,” LeBeau said. His sister was a wonderful baker; the men in Barracks 2 liked her cookies almost as much as the ones LeBeau himself made.

“Really? Well, my mom sent my letter right back to me. Guess the Kommandant didn’t like it too much!” Kinch held up a piece of paper that had been cut to ribbons. “It says: Dear Mom and Dad, I big empty space with big empty space. The big empty space was big empty space. But big empty space and big empty space weren’t big empty space. Can you believe it? Of all the things, it had to be big empty space. Love, James,” the sergeant read. The entire barracks roared with laughter, with one notable exception.

Newkirk lay on the bunk above Carter, frowning as he read through his letter. When he finished, he carefully folded it, stuck it in his jacket, and jumped down off the bunk. Slamming his hand against another bed frame twice, he activated the lever that raised Kinch’s bunk and revealed the entrance to the tunnels. Without a word to anyone, he swung over the side and dropped into the darkness.

Carter stood, ready to follow. LeBeau placed a restraining hand on his arm. “André, I don’t think Pierre wants company right now. He’s probably had some bad news from home.”

Carter nodded. “Yeah, I know. But he probably needs a friend now more than ever.”

“Your funeral,” Kinch said. “You know how Newkirk gets when he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Yeah, I know,” Carter repeated, then started down the ladder after his friend. 

He found Newkirk sitting on a rickety wooden bench down one of the abandoned tunnels with his face buried in his hands. “Newkirk?” the American asked tentatively. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” the Englishman said shortly, his voice muffled.

“Are you sure? You’re upset, I can tell.”

“I said it’s nothing,” Newkirk said harshly. Then, “Look, Carter, I know you’re trying to help, but really you’re not, so please leave me alone.”

“Okay, Newkirk. But if you do wanna talk…” Carter let his voice trail off, knowing that Newkirk would be able to fill in the rest. 

For his part, Newkirk half-wished Carter would stay and keep bothering him. Making him angry would help counterbalance the other emotions raging inside. To Newkirk, emotions were generally small inconvenient annoyances, things to be locked up inside his own personal safe, where they could be easily ignored and he could even pretend they didn’t exist. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), Carter didn’t see things the same way.

If Carter decided to just stand there and be stubborn, Newkirk knew he was emotionally fragile enough that, sooner or later, he’d crack and start crying. The news he’d gotten from his sister Mavis had hit him harder than he’d realized at first, maybe because it was so unexpected. He figured that if he told Carter now why he was upset, the American would leave him alone. He didn’t want anyone to see him this way, not even his closest friends.

“My mother and youngest sister are missing, presumed dead. In London. Now will you leave me alone?”

Carter froze, one foot on the ladder. Despite Newkirk’s request for privacy, all of his instincts were telling him that his friend needed him. Making his decision, the American turned around and sat down on the bench beside the Englishman. 

Newkirk’s head was still down, and Carter’s boots made little sound on the dirt floors of the tunnel, so the corporal jumped a little when the sergeant put an arm around his shoulders. “I’m really sorry, Newkirk.”

“Why? You weren’t the one who ordered the Krauts to bomb a hospital.” Having accepted the fact that Carter wasn’t going to leave, Newkirk forced himself to relax.

“A hospital?” Carter asked, gently prompting his friend to continue.

“Yeah. My mother’s been sick, and my sister went to go see her, and while she was there, there was a bombing raid. Mavis said that there’re fifty people still unaccounted for, my mother and sister bein’ two of them.” Newkirk tried to turn away, not wanting Carter to see the tears that threatened to spill down his face. “They bombed a hospital, Andrew. A hospital. This bloody war’s tearing my family apart.”

The American didn’t know what to say. He knew he had a habit of saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time, and he didn’t want to hurt Newkirk any more than he already was. So he didn’t say anything at all, just shifted a little closer to his friend to offer what support he could. To his surprise, Newkirk leaned against him, resting his head on Carter’s shoulder, tears leaking from beneath closed eyelids.

Carter finally gathered the courage to say what he was thinking. “Someday, Newkirk, there’s not going to be any more war.”

“Well, of course not. Nobody can keep at a war forever. You’d run out of food, or weapons, or soldiers.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. What I was trying to say was, someday people are going to see how senseless all this hate and killing is. Someday there aren’t going to be any more wars. There won’t be any more hate, or violence. And there won’t be any more families who have to have people taken away from them. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or even next century, but it’s gonna happen eventually. I know it is, Peter.

“And you know what else? You’ve got us now. We’re your family too, me and Louis and Kinch and the Colonel. It’s okay to cry. You’re safe here. We’re always gonna be here for you. Even if you stay in England after the war, and we go back to America. Or France, because I don’t think Louis really wants to go to America. We’ll still be there, even if we’re not there there, we’re still there for you.”

“You’re a twit, Andrew, you know that?” Newkirk smiled through his tears.

“Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t change what I think.”

“I wish I ‘ad half your faith in the human race.”

“That’s okay, ‘cause I’ve got enough for both of us,” Carter said. They lapsed into companionable silence, Carter’s arm around Newkirk, Newkirk’s head on Carter’s shoulder.

A few minutes later, Newkirk felt he could trust his voice enough to speak again. “Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”


End file.
